Draw Determines Groups and Schedule for Under-20 Championship 2017

On Nov 30, 2016

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(CONCACAF)Media Release
Miami (Tuesday, November 29, 2016) – The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) today conducted the draw for the CONCACAF Under-20 Championship Costa Rica 2017, at the National Stadium, in San Jose, Costa Rica.

The draw, which determined the groups and match schedule for the tournament that kicks off on February 17, in San Jose, was opened with welcoming remarks from Philippe Moggio, CONCACAF General Secretary and Costa Rican Football Federation President Rodolfo Villalobos. The event was conducted with the assistance of Melissa Herrera, Costa Rica Women’s National Team player and Ronald González, former player and coach of the Under-20 and veteran of the full Costa Rican National Team.

Tournament host Costa Rica was seeded into Group C, and will face El Salvador, Bermuda and Trinidad & Tobago. In Group A, defending CONCACAF Under-20 Champion Mexico was joined by Antigua & Barbuda, Honduras and Canada, while the United States, Panama, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Haiti make up Group B.

The National Stadium and Estadio Ricardo Saprissa will both be used for the tournament, to be played in a new format consisting of a group stage, a classification phase, and the grand final.

Under the new format, designed to increase the number of meaningful, competitive matches, the top two teams from Groups A, B, and C will advance to the Classification Stage, where the Confederation’s four tickets to the World Cup at this level will be determined in round robin play among two groups of three teams each. The top two teams of each of the two Classification Stage groups will qualify as CONCACAF representatives to the FIFA U-20 World Cup Korea Republic 2017.

For the draw, the Participating Member Associations were ranked and separated into four pots, based on their performance over the last four editions of the competition. Mexico, as current CONCACAF Under-20 Champions was seeded in position A1. The United States, as the best-ranked CONCACAF team in the last edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, was placed in position B1 and Costa Rica as host, earned position C1.

The remaining teams, from pots 2-4, were drawn in order and placed in the group position drawn from Pots A, B and C. The positions of each group winner and runner-up from the group stage were then drawn in group pairs, randomly into the two groups (D and E) for the Classification Stage.